June 1st ’14. Day 7: Work Hard, Play Hard

8am
Breakfast. It’s just me, Rosa and Jess working today as everyone else is on their day off (the last one of Spring Camp I think), so it’s pretty quiet. I think we’re just going to be doing odd jobs around camp, which is kind of my favourite thing to do. But actually. I like just being given a list of mindless tasks and ticking them off throughout the day. It’s quite satisfying.

Walking down to the lake

9:15am
I was right. We’re down in Student Boys section raking out the GIANT pile of wood chips that Dave from maintenance dropped off. And when I say giant, I really mean it’s absolutely enormous. And all in one place, so we have to push it so far around the section.

12pm
Raking the wood chips took us the entire morning as predicted. But it was pretty hilarious by the end – I think we lost our minds a little bit. So. Many. Wood chips. And then we had to go over to the basketball court and hang the nets, which obviously meant me climbing a very wobbly ladder and clipping the net onto the hoop. Standard.

Chilling on the lake

5:15pm
We’re done for the day. Spent the afternoon in the office making staff name badges while Rosa and Jess made about a thousand phone calls to try and get more people registered. The name badge thing is a super long and tedious job but, me being me, I actually quite enjoy it and find it quite therapeutic. That is, until the little machine breaks for absolutely no reason and you screw up about 5 badges in a row. So frustrating. It goes: 1. back of badge. 2. top of badge. 3. Paper with patter/design/name on. 4. Plastic sheet. 5. Pull the handle down hard until it clicks. 6. Flick the flicky thing to ‘2’. 7. Pull handle down again. 8. Pop the badge out. If all goes well, it looks lovely. If not (and this happens about 15% of the time *not an accurate number*), then the top parts gets stuck and the plastic doesn’t fold in properly. Nightmare.

More chatting than paddling!

9:20pm
This evening was lovely. A bunch of us just went down to the lake and took out some kayaks and canoes before having a campfire down on the beach. The water was calm, the air was warm and we just paddled around a bit as the sun set behind the trees. I think sometimes I forget how absolutely beautiful it is here and how lucky we are to call this place home for the summer. It’s so nice to just be a few people on camp and have some time to enjoy it in all it’s peaceful glory before the rest of the staff arrive, and then the kids come and the madness starts.